A camera crew from the @VisitMO team recently traveled to Pike County, Missouri, to search for the elusive Momo – a bigfoot-like creature who first appeared in the area in the 1970s.

As we traveled to Mississippi River country, we couldn’t find anyone who had a connection to the original, 1970s-era sightings, to speak to us on camera. One area resident, Andrew Stephens, did speak to us about his experiences with what may have been “the Momo.”

Stephens said it was the summer of 1997, while he was exploring a wooded area of Pike County, he encountered the creature. According to Stephens, Momo was lurking behind a tree, peeked out, ducked back behind the tree, then took off running. Stephens admits that he, too, ran from the scene … in the opposite direction.

Fast forward to this past weekend and our crew’s visit to the Louisiana area. Stephens took us to the area of his reported encounter. While one member of our crew was filming a segment, our photographer – who was shooting pictures about 75 yards away – came over to the camera operator and said he “heard something.”

Stephens immediately was spooked. He started looking around and became visibly agitated. He demanded our crews shut down the filming. What happened next is a little unclear.

If you look at the background right of the photo, you’ll see a figure lurking in the woods. Although none of us actually saw the creature with our own eyes, we know this much:
No one else was in the area; it’s private property
All members of our crew were accounted for
Stephens rode to the area on a pink Vespa, meaning he couldn’t have taken a “friend” to scare our crew

Does this image conclusively show evidence the Momo exists? That’s up to you to decide. As far as the VisitMO team is concerned, it does.

About Craig WoolheaterCo-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.

The “momo” looks much darker than the surrounding area…as if it were like a paper cut out glued to the original picture. It doesnt even look good enough to be Photoshop to me. The fur appears to be a solid color, black, with no contrast or change. Everything surrounding it is reflecting light and has contrast. Animals just dont look like that – they have more than one shade of color in their fur or at least areas that reflect. The creature also has a weird look of floating, and I would guess it to be very small. I know that it is supposed to be farther away, but the whole image looks wrong. I’d like to know what Cryptomundian PhotoExpert thinks.

Yep. It looks like a Bigfoot to me: big, dark, ape-shaped. No cowboy hat.

If this is a hoax, it would have required some advance planning. All the crew were accounted for; the witness arrived on his own on a vehicle incapable of carrying an accomplice. So, who was Momo?

The sighting was on private property. Presumably, the owner gave advance permission to film there. So, it would be safe to say at least one other person knew what was going to happen there in advance.

So, it wasn’t truly a chance encounter. Could have been a set-up by someone hoping to profit from a sighting. This could have been engineered without the witness or crew knowing about it.

If you accept this scenario, then the possibility would also exist that at least one of the crew (or the witness) would have shown up armed in anticipation of an encounter. If there was a hoaxer, he would have been putting himself in extreme danger. Perhaps he observed the group before showing himself, in order to assure himself he would not be shot.

I think Bigfoot is real, but before this type of situation is accepted as evidence, all possibility of a hoax needs to be eliminated first.

Perhaps I am putting an unrealistic condition on my acceptance of this type of evidence, but considering the extreme scrutiny given even the P/G film, I don’t think so.